Dietary Impact on Animal Products' Quality

Dear Colleagues,

Animal agriculture provides basic foodstuffs with high biological value such as milk, meat, and eggs. The supply of high-quality protein is particularly important at young and elderly ages, which has historically been provided by animal production. Although there are trends towards eschewing some or all kinds of animal-origin foods, globally and regionally, meat, dairy product, and egg consumption are not decreasing. It is the responsibility of the livestock sector to ensure that not only the quantity but also the quality of animal-origin foodstuffs is guaranteed. In some regions and countries, the consumption of meat and dairy products is very high, so their impact on human health should be considered. It is well known that the quality of animal-origin foodstuffs depends on many factors, but perhaps one of the most important is nutrient supply.

Feeding strategies and particular feed supplements may have strong—either positive or negative—impacts on the nutritive value and sensory or technological characteristics of animal products.

This Special Issue is open to original studies and comprehensive critical literature reviews focusing on the effect of livestock feeding on product quality, particularly regarding compliance with consumer and industrial expectations. We invite classical animal nutrition studies as well as multidisciplinary research highlighting the physiological, biochemical, and molecular-biological backgrounds of the phenomena.

The following topics are of great interest:

• Innovative feedstuffs (e.g., new protein and energy sources, and feed supplements produced by novel technologies) or feeding strategies (e.g., in utero or in ovo feeding) to improve the quality of animal-origin foodstuffs;
• Feed processing to counteract antinutritive factors compromising product quality;
• The interactions among nutrition, the environment, and animal products, focusing on quality aspects;
• Functional foods or foods fortified with specific nutrients;
• The interaction of animal nutrition and processing and/or storage conditions on food quality; 
• Improving animal product quality via the modification of the gut microbiome;
• Improving animal products by means of using recent findings in nutrigenomics;
• The nutrient supply as a regulator of gene expression and meat quality;
• Improving the health (immune) statuses of farm animals via nutrient supply and, thereby, improving the quality of animal products.

Dr. Veronika Halas
Prof. Dr. László Babinszky
Guest Editors

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• nutrient supply
• meat quality
• egg quality
• milk quality
• nutritive value
• omics studies